"I feel like a boy who is dressed in his first trousers," he said to me with a laugh. "You cannot comprehend the delight of returning to this place after the experiences I have undergone in Siberia, for even the life of an officer there is little better than that of a convict. I shall have the pleasure of meeting you often, Dubravnik, for I understand that you are frequently at the palace."
"Shall you be there?" I asked.
"Yes; I am detailed to the palace guard. Have you enjoyed the evening here?"
"Hugely."
"Of course you have met the princess frequently."
Durnief had a way of half closing his eyes when he talked. He evidently intended it to give him the appearance of indifference, but it had a directly opposite effect upon me, for it was palpably a mask to conceal the intensity of his gaze--to hide the interest he felt in whatever he uttered at the time.
"No," I said, "this is my first acquaintance with her."
"Then you should consider yourself greatly honored."
"I do." Possibly my monosyllabic reply was even shorter than it needed to have been for he gestured an almost imperceptible shrug, and hesitated while he again bestowed upon me that half quizzical glance which seemed to conceal a sneer, or which might have been intended to suggest that I should have understood some obscure meaning behind his words; but I chose not to see it. Then, as we shook hands at parting he honored me by a pressure or his thumb which Moret had taught me to understand as the very faintest kind of an interrogation. I have already mentioned it as often given by a nihilist to one whom he believes may be one with him. It was so faint and so uncertain that it might easily have been mistaken for an accident, and like the glance I permitted it to pa.s.s unnoticed.
It was about half past two in the morning when I emerged from the house. The air was exhilaratingly cold, and the storm was nearly past.
The clouds which had hovered over the city all the preceding day and night were still in evidence, however, so that the streets between the widely separated lamps were dark and lonely. The distance I had to go was something more than a mile, and I had traversed more than half of it and was in the act of turning a corner when directly beside me, and quite near, I saw a flash, was conscious of a loud report, and felt that I had received a sharp and telling blow on my head.
When I was again conscious of my surroundings I was in my own rooms, while beside the couch upon which I had been placed were my valet, a physician, and my faithful coadjutor, Tom Coyle.
"h.e.l.lo, Tom; what"s up?" I asked, feebly.
"Faith, you"d have been up higher than you care to go just yet, Dannie, if I hadn"t been drivin" wan av me own cabs this night, owin" to the sudden death av wan av me min," he replied. "The doctor says the bullet didn"t hurt ye much, but ye"d have been froze stiff if I hadn"t found ye whin I did."
"Tell me about it," I commanded.
"Divil a bit there is to tell, more than I"ve already said. I was goin"
to the princess" afther me fare, whin I heard a shot. I wint where I heard the sound and found you. That"s all I know."
"Where did the bullet strike me?"
"Foreninst yer head, Dannie. Ye"ll have a bald spot there, I"m thinkin". But it only broke the skin an" hit ye a welt that made ye see stars this cloudy night. Now I"m goin". Maybe I"ll have a report for you whin I come back. There"s snow enough. The blackguard ought to have left some tracks."
There is a spot on the back of the head where a very light blow will bring about insensibility, and it was exactly on that spot that the bullet had struck me, taking off a little hair and skin, but otherwise doing no damage; but I could not help connecting the attempt on my life with the experiences of the night; in other words, with the woman whose guest I had been and whose secrets I had overheard. I had cherished a feeling of the utmost charity for her until that moment, but the "accident" changed all that, for I had not a doubt in my mind that it was by her order that somebody had made the attempt to a.s.sa.s.sinate me.
After a few hours" sleep I felt as well as ever, and before the time to make my call upon the princess I paid a visit to Jean Moret. I had neglected to say that the only letter he had sent away since his imprisonment was one to his mother, from whom he had received a reply addressed through one of my agents, and in explanation of his reluctance to send more, he had said: "It is better that the world should think me dead." Concerning the woman for whose sake he became a nihilist, he never spoke. But the experiences I had pa.s.sed through at the home of the princess, the preceding night, made me wise concerning the ident.i.ty of the woman who had influenced him. Indeed I had had it from her own lips that she had played with this man, even as she had hoodwinked the prince. What the relations between her and Moret might have been, in what manner they had been brought together in the past, and by what transformation of individuality he had dared to raise his eyes to a princess, I could not even conjecture. There was no doubt, however, that she had used him for one of the marionettes in her puppet show; and now he, poor devil, because of it, was safer in a prison cell, and no doubt happier, too, than he would have been at liberty.
I wanted the man to talk and to talk about her, and I must confess what I did not at the moment realize that my desire found its source more in personal resentment against any confidential pa.s.sages that may have taken place between those two, than in my plain duty to the cause I was serving.
There are many kinds of jealousy, and each kind will find its expression through innumerable channels. If I had been charged with jealousy at that moment, I would have repudiated the suggestion with scorn and contempt; and yet I was jealous.
I had thought rather deeply upon this approaching conversation with Moret, while on my way to interview him, but I was no nearer to a determination regarding what I should say to him, when I entered the room he occupied in the prison, than I had been when the idea first occurred to me. Now when I entered the room where he was imprisoned, I said:
"Why is it, Moret, that you have never taken any further advantage of my promise that you could write and send letters?"
"There is no one with whom I care to communicate," he replied.
"Not even with the princess?" I asked the question idly, watching him from between half closed lids.
"With what princess?" he asked calmly, and without a trace of surprise or resentment in his perfectly trained countenance.
"Zara de Echeveria," I said, coldly.
"I do not know her."
"No! She knows you."
"Indeed? It is an honor to be known by a princess."
"I have it from her own lips that she is responsible for your presence in the palace."
"Then surely there is no need to interview me on the subject." He was thoroughly my equal in this play-of-words.
"She was told in my presence that you were dead. Would you not like to hear what she said in reply?" I asked him.
"If you care to tell me."
"She said that it was better so; that if you lived you would have betrayed all your friends--including her; that in fact you were more fool than knave."
"She is not complimentary; but as I do not know her, it makes no difference." Nothing could have been more composed than Moret"s manner was.
"You will not discuss her?"
"I would if I could, but I do not know her, monsieur."
"Well, Moret, I like your loyalty, even to one who has used you as a mere tool, and who is now rejoiced to learn that you are dead, and out of her way, with the dangerous secrets you possess. I am going to her as soon as I leave you; perhaps she will talk about you again."
Moret stared at me unwinkingly, but with a countenance that was like marble in its intensity. I knew that he was suffering, and that my words were the cause of his agony. I knew that I was prodding him deeply and severely, thrusting the iron into his soul with as little compunction as a Mexican _charo_ exerts when he "cinches" a heavily burdened _burro_. But I was doing it with malice prepense, and I was doing it for a purpose.
I wished, somehow, to compel this man to talk freely with me about the princess and yet all the time I was reluctant in my own soul to have him do it. During that interval Moret was greater than I; more chivalrous than I; for he remained loyal to his duty towards her, as he saw it, in spite of the terrible accusation I had made against her womanliness, and notwithstanding all the insinuations I had put forward, respecting her utter disregard and contempt for him.
"Perhaps she will do so," he said; "that is, if she knows aught to say of me."
He was silent for a moment after that, and I waited, knowing that I had tried this man to the utmost point of his mental endurance.
Presently he raised his eyes again to mine, and said:
"Mr. Dubravnik, at the very beginning of our acquaintance, when you made a prisoner of me in one of the rooms of the suite you were to occupy in the palace, I told you that I had gone into this business for the love of a woman, and it was tacitly, if not literally agreed between us at that time, that the woman"s personality and name should form no part of our future discussions. You have chosen, at this time, to mention a princess, to whom you give the name of Zara de Echeveria, and I have told you that I know no such person; that the name means nothing to me. What you may surmise, Mr. Dubravnik, can have no effect upon me, or upon your relations with me, or mine with you. So now I tell you once again, that while I am perfectly willing to believe myself to be morally free to discuss with you all phases of nihilism, I will not discuss this woman you have named, _or any other woman_."
He bowed his head and I could see beads of sweat upon his forehead which betrayed the mental anguish he was undergoing. I knew that it was far worse than physical torture, and as there was nothing to gain by prolonging it, and nothing more to be said, I withdrew.
At the end of another half hour I was announced to the princess.
She received me in a diminutive bower of Oriental luxury. Her decorative tastes were decidedly Eastern and lavishly extravagant. She knew how to arrange a room with the object of stealing away a man"s reserve. There is something about the atmosphere of well chosen surroundings which intoxicates judgment and murders discretion--which bars reason at the threshold and generates madness of thought and deed beyond it. A Solon in the princess" drawing room might become a puppet in her boudoir; in that fascinating atmosphere a Jove would have degenerated to a Hermes, or Mars have cast away his sword and shield for the wings of Apollo. To enter it, was like awaking from a vivid dream of battle to find the soft arms of love around you, and to feel the lethargy of infinite content. Add to this the personality of the Princess Zara, her half hesitating smile of welcome in which pleasure and dread were equally mingled; suffuse her face with a quick blush, and instantly replace it with a touch of pallor; render her manner with a suggestion of hauteur, softened by a gesture of timidity and doubt; listen to her voice, low-toned and infinitely calm yet vibrating in a minor chord of uncertainty and dread; feel the clasp of her hand, cold when it touches yours, yet instantly thrilling you with a glow induced by the contact, and--remain thoroughly master of yourself if you can.
Retain, if you have the strength to do so, the opinions you had formed, the judgments you have pa.s.sed. If you succeed, you are a giant; if you fail, you are just what I was--a man, and human.
"You are punctual, and I am grateful," she murmured. "If you had been late----"